Video Games Affect Our Brain and Learning System

The way video games influence our brain has been a long-debated subject. Some have said that games have a bad influence especially on children’s brains. Others think it helps them develop a strong sense of orientation and the ability to solve complex problems. Now, a new study suggests that certain video game genres might influence the brain’s hippocampal system. Also, the way a person navigates can also have an impact on our brains. It’s worth noting that this particular region of the brain deals with memory, spatial orientation and learning. It’s very important when it comes to the cognitive processes in our brains.

How certain games affect our brains

If the hippocampus become empty, that person has a very high risk of developing brain illnesses like depression, Alzheimer’s and even schizophrenia. The study says that there is a category of players whose brains might be even more affected by those games. According to the experts, those who use response strategies instead of spatial memory ones to orientate inside a video game map will suffer even more damage. Usually, first-person shooter games are the one which require a high capacity when it comes to navigation and decision-making abilities. The journal Molecular Psychiatry published the results of this recent study in video games.

In order to reach these conclusions, the team of researchers studied the grey matter inside 33 people’s brains. After that, they analyzed the differences between the hippocampal systems which belonged to two categories of people: those who regularly play games and those who don’t play at all. The team also asked the participants to answer some questions regarding what strategies they use when they need to navigate inside a game’s environment. According to the study, there are some interesting differences between response learners and spatial learners.

A big difference between two categories of players

When asked to solve a maze puzzle, the first category used certain patterns in order to remember the steps they needed to complete. On the other hand, spatial learners had a better orientation capacity. Also, they established a clear connection between the targets and other objects in that maze. It’s interesting that those people who regularly play video games actually employed response strategies more frequently. The experts’ conclusion was that playing first-person shooters drastically reduces the grey matter in the hippocampus.